Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #72 (Pt 4): 3.10.85 – Rod Vicious

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Simon Price, Rock Expert David Stubbs and Al Needham hit the final stretch of this episode of TOTP, and pick through the ‘delights’ of the Top Ten. It’s a meaty fist in the air for Billy Idol, King of the Quincy Punks, before being subjected to a cult indoctrination video. We savour Midge Ure’s Sympathy Number One, and then it’s on to the dancefloor for some well-supervised fun with Five Star, before your Mam finds out who’s got Meeeshell in the club…   Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | PatreonGet your tickets for Chart Music at the London Podcast Festival HEREOrder Different Times by David HEREPre-order Curepedia by Simon HERE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. It's Thursday evening. It's n-n-n-n-n-nineteen minutes past seven.

It's October the 3rd, 1985. The sleeves are hoiked high. The success codes swing low. This episode atop of the pops is reaching a shuddering climax. And the mams and non-ors of the nation are just sitting there wanting this pop ramble to end. So they can find out who got Michelle Fowler up the stick. Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to the final part of episode 72 of Chart Music. Come along now.

Join Simon Price, rock expert David Stubbs, and my good self Al Needham as we enter the final straight. Charge! good self, I'll need them as we enter the final straight. George! I'll be good. Hey, they're looking good. At number 22 this week, Rene and Angela. Right now, here's the top ten on video.

And you've got six places, two number ten. Colonel Abrams and Trapped. It's the same fucking thing as the Top of the Pops performance this video. What's the point of either of them? Weird choice. Ooh, Merillians dropped two places to number nine this week with Lavender Blue.

Singing Dilly Dilly with this look of seriousness on his face. Dilly Dilly! Like, angrily. Taylor's karaoke song. Well, we are five places to number eight. Billy Idol, Rebel Yell. Hey, they're looking good at number 22 this week, says Jordan, still with his hand in his pocket as Davis introduces the top ten through the medium of video clips.

But as Michael Hurl is clearly keen to jam in as many acts as possible, a couple of them get an extended play, and the first one is Rebel Yell by Billy Idol. Born in Stanmore, Middlesex in 1955, William Broad was relocated to America at the age of two, where he spent four years before his family returned to the UK and moved to Dorking. In 1975, he started an English degree at the University of Sussex, but he only lasted a year, and started knocking about with a gang of youths

who'd caught an early gig by the Sex Pistols, and started to follow them around. And when Caroline Coon devoted an article to them in Sounds, when they travelled to Paris to see the Pistols in September of 76, they were given the nickname, The Bromley Contingent. Soon afterwards, Broad, who by that time had adopted the name Billy Idol after a negative school report, had become a guitarist of a new band called Chelsea and was encouraged by lead singer Gene October to ditch his glasses,

dye his hair blonde and be a bit more rock and roll. However, musical differences set in very quickly and Idol and bassist Tony James fucked off to form Generation X. After three LPs and three top 40 singles, Gen X split up in early 1981 and Idol was immediately persuaded by their manager Bill Alcoyne, who was also managing Kiss, to return to America and start a solo career, where he was teamed up with the guitarist Steve Stevens and signed to Chrysalis Records. His debut LP, Billy Idol, was put out in May of 1982 to moderate success in the US, but the first cut from it, Hot in the City,

only got to number 58 for two weeks in September of that year over here. And when this single was belatedly put out in March of 1984, after it got to number 36 on the Billboard chart 11 months earlier, it struggled up to number 62 and no further he visited the uk in june of that year and reintroduced himself to the pop craze youngsters on radio one's round table where he immediately necked a bottle of champagne and was escorted from the building after 10 minutes and then popped up on top of the pops for the first time in five years, but only in a guest appearance

where Steve Wright asked him what he was doing there and he said, I'm here to rock and roll. But he finally landed a hit in Britain with the follow-up, Eyes Without a Face, which got to number 18 in August of 84, which led to Chrysalis relaunching his career in the UK by putting out the remix compilation LP Vital Idol in June of this year and the lead cut from that, a revamp of his 1982 single White Wedding got to number 6 in August.

This is the follow-up of sorts which entered the charts at number 38 in the middle of September, then soared 13 places to number 25. After an appearance in the top of the pop studio, it soared another 12 places to number 13, and this week it's nipped up another five places to number eight,

and finally, chaps, Billy Idol enters the arena. Mm, yeah. Billy Idol, I mean, he's reet daft, as no-one says up north, but it's, you know... I mean, it's kind of a two-Ronnie's take on punk, you know, it's kind of Sid Snot, whatever, but I guess he's just got this kind of slickness, which I guess gave him a particular American appeal,

you know, that kind of lack of Finnish, and I dare say the French. But, you know, and I think the British audiences might have been a little bit more sceptical of it. It's odd, because as Al mentioned, he's the real thing. He's part of the Bromley contingent. Yes. But it's a bit like, I don't know,

Hal Jones turning out to have, like, recorded with the early Cabaret Voltaire back in the mid-'70s or something, you know, because it's just weird, because his essence of punk cliché, you know, I mean, and a dream of punk, whereas, in fact, by and large, actual punks at the time were dressing in flares, had centre partings in their hair, crap jumpers and, you know, little scabs

with the tripod safety pins in the noses. Yeah. I think then is now that the whole idea of any sort of rock music was to take Billy Idol as your point of departure and depart as far away as possible from him. He says as much to me about my life as discotheques and the sexolettes said to Morrissey. But then again, they're redeeming features, they really are.

I mean, what I really like about it is he's the same age here as the Billy Idol he plays in The Wedding Singer, you know, that 1985 self. And I did enjoy that film, I've got to confess. Anyway. I hated Billy Idol at the time because he'd gone over to America and sold out to my mind.

Never mind that punk actually started in America. And never mind that Billy Idol was actually fucking there in 1976. And never mind even more that I wasn't and had never been a punk. It just felt wrong to me. I more that i wasn't and had never been a punk it just felt wrong to me i mean i wasn't aware of the term at the time because it didn't exist but if i had done i would have dismissed him as a quincy punk an example of americans getting punk all wrong long after the

you know which obviously was named after that episode of Quincy MD in 1982 called Next Stop Nowhere, where Jack Klugman takes time out from making police cadets vomit on the floor to investigate the death of a punk lad at a club and deduces that the nihilistic worldview of punk had a factor in his death, but not as much as the ice pick that someone hit him in the back with. Yeah, that's got to go on the old YouTube list, that. But discounting the punks on the punk CD album of the 90s, which had fucking Karma Chameleon

and Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins in their punk compilation. But the greatest Quincy punks of all were Payne, the punk band in that episode of Chips. Did you ever see that? Yes, oh yeah, yeah. Oh, Simon, fucking hell. There are a load of meat-headed jocks with mohicans who nick a load of instruments off a new wave band called snow pink and they

throw one of those bases off a roof onto a car and then they enter a battle of the bands contest and trash the club toilets before singing their song i dig, which is fucking mint. It goes, get a hunk of concrete and stick it in my face. I like to play with razor blades. I hate the human race. I dig pain, the pain in my brain. The smashing, the bashing, the clawing, the trashing, the giving, the getting and the total blood bloodletting, driving me insane. I dig pain.

You've watched this a lot. I know, I was going to say, yeah. It's the classic What Kids Think Punk Sounds Like song, you know, along with Gob On You by Mel Smith. Yeah. But luckily, Chip sought it all out, and the episode ends with Ponch as special guest at the battle of the bands singing celebration by calling the gang so yeah disco has won again it's like uh do you remember

that episode of sopranos where adriana starts managing a grunge band and uh they're called defiling right yes get out of my way and don't be so gay because I'm going to defile, defile you. This whole genre is something that really is of interest to me when mainstream film or mainstream TV tries to do kind of alternative culture and gets it slightly wrong. You know, like if there's a scene in Beverly Hills 90210 where they go to a nightclub, like a bit of an edgy, sketchy nightclub. Or I think there's Crocodile Dundee, you know, when you go to a nightclub.

Terminator 2, you know, whenever that happens, it's always an absolute joy. It's always a bit like the Baby Sham advert, you know, hey, I'll have a Baby Sham. Everyone's wearing fucking leather and stuff, you know, and everyone's, like, super mean and nasty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the punk band in Milk's got a lot of bottle.

Exactly. Affronted by Daniel Peacock, I believe. All right. So, yeah, to my mind then, you know, Billy Idol was

rod vicious. You know, he crushed punk down into a sneer and a fist. Yeah, he absolutely did. And The Cure literally pissed all over

Billy Idol. I've got to tell you this, right? No. I'm going to read you this, right? No! I'm going to read to you from Lowell Tolhurst's autobiography, Cured, A Tale of Two Imaginary Boys. And the set-up for this is that The Cure were on their first national tour as support to Generation X.

OK, so, right, here's what Lowell has to say about that. Two nights later, the highlight of the tour occurred. I was searching desperately for the gents to relieve myself of several pints of free Gen X lager consumed after the Bristol gig at the Locarno, a throwback 1960s mecca ballroom complete with sparkly curtains and glitter balls. It was the kind of place that was more accustomed

to hosting beauty contestants in bikinis and grass skirts than punk gigs. I finally spied the men's toilets and burst into the room, unzipping my flies as I entered to save precious time, as the pressure had built up substantially. of my eye, Billy Idol perched somewhat precariously in the next stall with a young lady clasped to his bosom, or maybe he was clasping her bosom. Time distorts such distinctions. A guttural sound passed from my throat which might have been recognised as Hello Billy, were I in a more sober

mood, but it just sounded like a low grunt after that much alcohol. The young lady looked somewhat startled by the fact that there was another musician in the vicinity of their love nest, so the ever chivalrous Mr Idol tried to calm her down with a valiant, don't be nervous love, or something to that effect, while she anxiously eyed the toilet door. Unfortunately, by this time, I'd reached the point of no return, and a stream of urine shot outwards to the porcelain bowl next to Billy.

Regrettably for me, as well as Billy and his date, my aim was not improved terribly with the consumption of so much cheap lager. And as I looked down towards where I assumed the urinal was, I realised I was, in fact, urinating on Billy's leg, pissing on the idol. Oh, no, the Bromley piss prize. He gave me one of his trademark sneers, and I hastily zipped up and hightailed it out of there in a flurry of drunken apologies.

On the drive home, as I sobered up, I'd already perceived that this event might not be seen in the jolly japes or lads together kind of way one might hope. However, I thought, not unreasonably, that someone who was bathed in spittle every night wouldn't find much wrong with a little urine on his strides as he was caught in flagrante delicto with a local lass. It might even be seen as punk camaraderie of sorts, right?

How wrong I was on that count. And yeah, basically, it goes on. And the upshot was that Billy Idol didn't see the funny side and The Cure were booted off the Generation X tour. Oh, no! At the time, this was a bit of a disaster. One thing I found out when researching my book, Curepedia, if I've mentioned that yet,

is that the Billy Idol golden shower wasn't even the only incident involving Lowell Tolhurst and pissing, by the way. There was one where he nearly got shot by Margaret Thatcher's special branch officers while pissing in the bushes. What? Yeah. They were up in Scotland at the same time as Thatcher was in town

addressing a conference, and Lowell was pissing in the bushes, and he noticed a red dot on like a laser dot on his leg and uh yeah yeah there's another incident where he needed a piss in the middle of a gig and went behind the curtain to piss in a bucket but the lighting cast a shadow against the backdrop so the entire crowd saw a silhouette of his cock um there's another one where the cure got thrown out of a bar in Rotterdam because Lol pissed in a phone booth thinking it was a toilet.

No wonder they didn't want to be in a fucking wardrobe with him all afternoon. Exactly. There's another also in the Netherlands where Lol went on a drunken rampage around a hotel that annoyed Robert so much that Robert pissed in Lol's suitcase. So normally when a young rock band out on the road

can't control their penises, it's fornication. With a cure, it's urination. Urination, yes. So there's a whole section in Curepedia just called pissing. Glorious. Anyway, back to Billy Idol. Yeah, so my French-assistan Didier, aforementioned, would have been punching the air in an imagined studded leather glove

when this came on yeah and quite rightly so oh I've got a couple of gross out stories involving Billy himself by the way the first one I've told before on Chart Music that's the one where Billy approaches David Bowie in a nightclub and halfway there he vomits all over himself wipes his mouth on his sleeve and then shakes

Bowie's hand but the other one is that story of when he was, not to sort of put too fine a point on it, fisting somebody after a gig, and she kind of clamped up and he couldn't extricate himself and he had to dangle his fist in an ice bucket to bring it back to normality. But what I love about both of those stories

is that they feed into our folk memory of Billy Idles, this kind of dumb, blonde bozo who's sort of puking and fisting his way through 80s America, you know, occasionally crashing his motorbike or getting busted for drugs and making millions along the way. And I use the word dumb about Billy, and it might feel like I'm dissing him there,

but I think dumbness in rock is distinct from stupidity. The Ramones, for example, did dumb better than anyone, right? And Joey Ramone, blatantly a genius, I think, right? So Billy Idol, and this becomes really apparent from his book, Dancing With Myself, he is more thoughtful and articulate in real life than you might have expected, despite those stories. But even without that, he was clearly a smart bastard

with a canny knack for self-marketing you've talked about how he pitched up in america i mean it's kind of masterful what he does after the end of generation x because generation x kind of fizzled out really he didn't leave them on a high let's put it that way you know they weren't top of the world no so he turns up supposedly with only one suitcase and a gretch guitar and a pink elvis jacket um which sounds a bit like self-romanticising, but that's his story. But importantly, that face, that beautiful face. I think he's a really beautiful man. And yeah, he hooks up, as you mentioned, with Kiss's manager, Bill

O'Coin, but also Blondie's label, Chrysalis. And if you think of it, he carved out a career that combines the pop-punk hooks of Blondie and the cheap thrills of Kiss, showbiz-wise. So, yeah, he did sell this kind of airbrushed, streamlined version of punk to mainstream America. Very much so. And he was the perfect sex god for the MTV age, really. He's this sort of peroxide Presley who never got old, fat and dead. He was the Sid Vicious who wasn't going to murder anyone, you know.

And I also think he was reassuring, even though he's beautiful, he was reassuringly macho among the more effeminate cockatoos of the second British invasion. So therefore he could bring heartland America on board. Yes. And if, yeah, if you look at the timeline that you gave us, the fact that White Wedding was originally from 82, the Americans caught onto this way before we did. We weren't ready for that dumb macho approach was originally from 82. The Americans caught on to this way before we did.

We weren't ready for that dumb macho approach to things in 82, but by 85, maybe British culture changed enough. Billy Idol was always seen as a retrograde chancer because, you know, while The Clash was singing, no, Elvis Beakles or Rolling Stones in 1977, Generation X was singing about Elvis Beakles and the Rolling Stones and Cathy Mc my fucking Gowan and by the mid 80s he's having massive success in America

but over here he's still seen as a bit of a prat particularly in the music press at the end of an NME interview where he banged on about rock and roll again Matt Snow wrote I mean have you ever read such crap in your life Billy has become a big star through his looks, his expensive videos, his ex-Kiss manager

and his well-established record company. Yet just because he's stuck to that bottled hairdo for the best part of a decade, he reckons he's still a punk, whatever that is. But at least he's never sold out. For the only difference between 77 and 84 is that now billy idol is a dickhead on a cosmic scale you know a lot of this stuff that we're talking about the dumbness is very much at surface level and the songs are actually lyrically a little bit

more interesting than that you know so i think yeah there is that little bit more to him and i think as someone again pointed out there is definitely a sort of a canniness in terms of like the kind of career he made for himself I don't think there's any, I mean look part of the problem for me actually I realise now is that I always had him down as the idiot who sang Bebopaloola I've got a looga on

You Don't Need A Gun only to, yeah and I thought fucking hell only to google the lyrics and to realise some 30 years, that he sang no such thing. Oh, what? Wow. I know, it was something the Stud Brothers made up. So, basically, it turns out that I'm the idiot. I'm the idiot who thought Billy Idol was the idiot

who sang Beep-Bop-A-Loo-La-I've-Got-A-Loo-Gah on You Don't Need A Gun. That is so zig-zig-swap-nick. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just think, in pop, you will never be forgiven for being pretty. You certainly won't be forgiven by David Stubbs. Like Bauhaus are the other example of this to me. Because to my mind, Bauhaus are this incredible, inventive, experimental post-punk group

who should be thought of on a par with Public Image Limited or Wire or Magazine or any of those bands, Joy Division even. But to David, they're these kind of preening idiots because they're good-looking and because Peter Murphy was in the Maxell advert. Am I right? I mean, that's how you think of them, right? Well, I don't think of them as highly as you do, certainly. I mean, I like, you know, Bela Lugosi's Dead, you know,

has kind of got a kind of dubby thing going. But I probably find it a bit facile, whether it's some sort of unacknowledged prejudice against cheat bones yeah yeah maybe so I'm glad you partly copped to that but yeah Billy Idol I think again I'm not really pointing the finger

at David here but waving a fist you mean waving a fist yeah but yeah the music press in general certainly the Inkeys were suspicious of him because he was so slickly presented he was so good-looking, and it was very much a package. And it was a bit of a sort of throwback idea of what punk is,

you know, like studded leather and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and never actually was, you know. I mean, but what can you say? There's a thing, it's Billy Idol, what are you going to do? I mean, it's silly to get sort of steamed up about it. It's like having a fight with a cardboard cutout outside a record store, you know. And actually, unlike Morrissey,

he's probably brought nothing but fun to the world. Yes. Ultimately, really. And of course, you know, in 1985, the UK have finally caught on, presumably to a generation who can't remember anything about punk or their older brothers and sisters

who just couldn't give a toss about all that and just want to go a bit mad in the dance area of the wine bar every now and then. Yeah, I do like in the lyric, though, that, like, you know, the rebel yell at this woman. The rebellion isn't, you know, extinction rebellion, you know, just stop oil, but rebels against the hegemony of not wanting sex with rock stars, you know. Yes. None of that bourgeois restraint for her, you know.

Yeah, she wants more more more even if they're being pissed on by lol tolst for yes yes yeah yeah fucking hell in this video clip apart from billy himself obviously it's steve stevens who catches the eye with his uh yes is you know he's the long-serving guitarist with yeah the randy roads to billy idols aussie osborne exactly and he's got that motley crew hairdo and he's got that Motley Crue hairdo. And he's got the ankle-length, shoulder-padded success coat. Yes. But I want to talk about the unsung hero here,

who's Keith Forsey, right? The producer. The thing with Rebel Yell is that it's not a rock record, really. It's a dance record. Yes, it is. And that's all because of Keith Forsey. So Keith Forsey was a producer, but first and foremost, he was a drummer.

He'd been around since the 60s. He played with Udo Lindenberg. And there's a kraut rock connection as well because he played percussion with Amon Dool too. Well, what, Amon Doll 11? Yeah, exactly. But then he joins up with Giorgio Moroder and plays drums on donna

summer records like bad girls and he played on number one in heaven by sparks so right he knew about the metronomic okay and uh you can hear that the very first time he works billy idol because that's the 1981 album kiss me deadly by gen x as they were then called. That's right before they split up. It's like when Ultravox changed their name to Uvox for a bit. Yes. But that album included a single, Dancing With Myself, which was later rebooted as a Billy Idol solo single, which might be about wanking, but it's very much a dance tune. Oh, yeah, it is, yeah.

You can do both. Well, yeah, you can. Depending on what club you go to. Kind of clubs where you get fetish spor yeah berghain basically um but yeah keith forsey as much as steve stevens is the musical architect of billy idol's solo career and you can hear that metronomic precision through everything they do together rebel yell being no exception so um for all the kind of lip curling and that fist, that big swollen fist, and for all the rock guitar riffing, Rebel Yell is a dance record

in the same way that Eliminator by ZZ Top is a dance album. It sounds machine tool. It doesn't swing. It doesn't rock. It's got a mechanical shudder to it. And some people will dislike that about it.'t rock it's got a mechanical shudder to it and some people will dislike that about it i love it and i guess cc sputnik take that on still further don't they with their kind of tony james yeah yeah yeah i think david's right you just have to love billy idol even if you you

wouldn't sit down and listen to his records you wouldn't sit down and listen to his records but you'd sit down and listen to him oh Oh, God, imagine. In a pub. Imagine, yeah, Jesus. And I just think there's something badly wrong with anyone who doesn't enjoy Billy Idol as a great pop thing. I mean, David mentioned that bit where he makes the cameo appearance in the airplane scene in The Wedding Singer, which I think is a bit of a ropey film, to be honest.

But Billy, in that moment, it just lifts the whole film. Yeah, it does. That's what he does. Billy Idol just cheers everyone up just by existing i think yeah he's a good interview billy idol is you know he's got a lot to say about rock and roll he evangelizes about it here are a few quotes i pulled out uh which sound like facebook inspirational jpegs rock and roll is a pair of dice rock and roll is a thing of beauty and velvetness rock and roll is flex of human fire and rock and roll is one man's heart jump starting another's yeah brilliant and of course at moment, he's getting absolutely coated down by his peers who think he's a knobhead. You know, Boy George has called him head without a brain. And John Lydon famously called him the Perry Como of punk.

That whole rock and roll thing. Are you on side? Yeah, he's on side. Yes. Billy Idol is on side. That song. I mean, Boy George can make fun of Eyes Without A Face you know whatever Face Without A Brain but that is

a magnificent track Eyes Without A Face it almost seems you know if that was recorded by someone with a bit more gravitas like I don't know Talk Talk or The Blue Nile everybody be rhapsodising about it but because it's Billy Idol yeah totally I actually agree with that, yeah.

So, the following week, Rebel Yell nudged up two places to number six, its highest position. The follow-up to Be A Lover only got to number 22 in November of 1986, but he'd have one more top ten hit when his cover of Mo'ni Mo'ne, which was his debut single in America in 1981,

got to number seven in October of 1987. And of course, later this year, a version of Rebel Yell was used in an advert for KP Honey Roasted Peanuts, because apparently if you

had one of them, you'd want more, more more more oh she never quite made that number one spot now this week she's down to number seven bonnie tyler holding out for a hero in 1985 i probably rather pompously detested bonnie tyler she's clearly a great human being down one and six here. Here's Madonna, an angel. Do you notice this, right? Bonnie Tyler gets, oh,

for not getting to number one or whatever. Madonna gets, whoa, from Gary Davis there. It's really weird. Last week, he was at number three. This week,

he's at number five. Stevie Wonder, part-time lover. This is all right. It's not bad. And it's a good week for Redbox. part-time lover. This is alright. It's not bad. And it's a good week for Redbox. They're up two places to number four with Lean On Me.

Gary Davies' reaction to Madonna, though. Fucking hell. Yeah. That's not very smooth, Gary. No. Oh, can you imagine that Gary Davies would probably flicker in his tongue while he said that as well. Formed at the Polytechnic of central London in 1978, Harlequins were a student band who changed their name to Red Box

after a scarlet receptacle which had been left behind by Slade after a college gig that the group stored their microphones in. After most of the band had graduated, they signed a one-shot deal with Cherry Red in 1983, which produced the single Chenko. Despite plenty of airplay on Evening Radio 1 and a session for Janice Long, it just missed out on the top 100 and the deal expired, leaving the band looking for a new label. And when a potential deal with MCA was put on hold, most of the band pissed off to get proper jobs and the lineup had slimmed down to a two-piece, Simon Toulson Clark and Julian Close. However, the single had caught the ear of Seymour Stein,

who signed them to Psy Records in 1984, and their first single on that label, a cover of Buffy St. Marie's Saskatchewan, also just missed the charts. This is the follow-up, which is immediately played out by Radio 1 and entered the charts at number 79 at the beginning of August, where it took four weeks to enter the top 40 at number 30, Bagsy in a slot on the breakers section in that

week's Top of the Pops. The following week it soared 12 places to number 18, forcing Top of the Pops to bring them into the studio that week, which helped it soar once again to number six. This week, it's nipped up two places to number four, and here's a longish clip. And, oh, boys, this feels like the real 1985 has descended upon us, doesn't it? Oh, I mean, fucking hell. You know, I mean, good on Julian Close, a.k.a. Prince Edward, for breaking royal precedent and being one of a

pop team. But, you know, it looks like a sort of botched laboratory attempt to create a Go West. And, you know, it should have been dispensed with out hand. Clearly, they're well-intentioned. You know, there's a lot of we are the worldliness about them, you know, and their anti-American militarism, you know, but it's

like, why must the angels have all the worst tunes? It's, I don't know, it's sub-Tiers for Fears. I mean, but also, I, you know, but it's like, why must the angels have all the worst tunes? It's, I don't know, it's sub-Tears for Fears. I mean, but also, I don't know, just the confidence to be this boxy, this empty of everything except decent intentions. I mean, I just tried other stuff. I just cruised around YouTube, you know, and I just drew an absolute blank.

I mean, they just seem to be running on absolute empty, and they're still running. You know, and they've got the nerve to criticise the American media for its style over content approach, when they've got neither style or content. It's, yeah. Simon? Have you heard the good news about Jesus? What it is, right, they really creeped me out of the red box,

because they seemed like evangelical Christians. I don't know if that was actually their agenda, but it seemed like their tour bus was a Jesus Army bus. Every time they were on the radio or on TV, I felt like I was being groomed to be part of some kind of cult. I felt like, you know, if you get too close to the band Redbox, you're going to end up at some kind of happy-clappy summer camp where everyone's sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya or swinging their pants.

Yeah, they just made me feel weird in a way I couldn't quite... Their expressions were beatific, that's the word. Yeah. And it just seemed all wrong for pop. Yeah. I disliked them disproportionately, maybe. Maybe they weren't as evil as I thought, but sort of made my skin crawl. Maybe, Simon, it was the fact that one of them went to harrow well there is that

simon tolson clark i actually looked up the surname tolson clark to see where the family fortune came from right didn't really come up with anything but i did find somebody who does a lot of eventing as in horse eventing right so that's clearly the sort of social milieu that they come from. You know me, though. I would never hold somebody's privately educated background against them. Frankly, Al, I think it's beneath you to imply that I'd have a problem with that. So, the song. I've looked at the lyrics online.

I still don't know what the fuck they're going on about. Can you help me? Together we are strong, a flame that can't be dimmed you know lines like that and lines like you've got to lean on me you can fight alone without solidarity i think it's really important to have lyrics like that in 1984 85 the time of the minor strike you know class oh oh wait oh oh no hang on sorry that's the red skins lean on. Sorry. That's the Redskins' Lean On Me. Oh, shit. I mean, in the Lean On Me league, this trails far behind Lean On Me by Bill Withers, Lean On Me by the Redskins, and rap summary Lean On Me by Big Daddy Kane. But you get the feeling that this is what the BBC and Radio 1 in particular

once popped to be in 1985. You know, a couple of nice, sensible young lads who use sims but aren't gay about it with a social conscience. It's been played to death on Radio 1. They've already been on Wogan, which has become the TV show to get your acts on. But, you know, this isn't real kids' issues, is it?

No. I mean, I don't know what it is. It just seems to be filling some sort of required space, but it's just empty. I zoned it out completely at the time. The video, what we see of it, looks expensive and glossy with images of naked babies with their bits tastefully obscured and the duo arsing about on a playground roundabout

on a park bench with a big clapperboard with assorted people of the world. But to me, the really disorientating thing is the overlays of words throughout the video because they look massively similar to the band names that Top of the Pops uses at the end of performances. And it just threw me. Even though, you know, some of those words were in foreign,

but it's like, oh, what's going on? I don't understand this. Yeah, they are quite a post-live-A band and it's all oh what's going on i don't understand this yeah they are quite a post live a band and it's all very one world isn't it you know they've they've got a bunch of chinese teenagers holding on to the singer guy and yeah and all of that a band just waiting for q to be invented yeah one world with them mysteriously at the top of it yeah exactly yeah it was all very happy clappy it was all very it reminds me of when i was in uh infant school junior school we'd always have a trendy teacher who would do re and make us sing lord of the dance

yes it's very lord of the dance all that from the very very young to the very very old all that sort of stuff oh god oh my god oh yeah i know i think maybe the harrow thing is it just gives you kind of this unearned confidence basically and the fact that they have Red in the name. At that time, bands with Red in the name, you thought they were kind of on the right side of the political divide, whether it's Simply Red or the Redskins or Well Red, I think was another one, when those bands were always playing events that were sponsored by the Greater London Council. And I thought, OK, give them a fair hearing. Maybe they're one of those.

But yeah, there's just something a bit off about them. And the fact that even I, a man who analyses pop far too much, can't quite figure out what it is. No such thing, Simon. Ah, yeah. That in itself unsettles me. It's almost like meta-unsettling. I'm unsettled in the first place.

Then I'm unsettled because I can't quite work out why. Which is it. But I do just think they're not quite noncing us but they are just trying to enlist us religious cults don't show their hand immediately you know they always appear to be very sort of feel good and very innocent and it's only when they've got you in their grip that that their dark agenda yeah comes to the fore and I just thought there was something like that going on with Headbox. Like that massive poster you used to see in tube stations in the early 90s of a drawing of someone on a motorbike and someone else playing a guitar. And at the end it says, check out the facts down at the tab. Oh, the tab, the tabernacle, yeah.

God, I remember that one, yeah. But yes, they are being inclusive, Simon. You know, as an article in Kid Jensen's pop column in the Sunday Mirror bears out, headline, silent protest. Eagle-eyed viewers of the video for the Redbox hit Lean On Me will have noticed the girl in the lower right-hand corner giving a sign language performance of the song for deaf people. Lean On Me is about communication,

and Simon Toulson and clark and julian close tell me they were concerned that deaf people were missing out on videos but i can reveal that the hard of hearing get more than a straightforward version of the song halfway through the girl deserts the lyric to protest hey i don't know what i'm doing here I really don't think I'm being paid enough for this and it's really weird because she's semi-opaque isn't she so she just floats around the bottom right hand corner of the screen

she's not as full on as the woman who does the signing at that public enemy gig but you know never mind it's a start anything else to say about this? Just that if they are sort of not playing their religious hand then they've not been playing it for a very long time but still knocking around yeah i mean obviously my accusation just doesn't bear much close analysis but it's just how they

made me feel at the time oh yeah yeah yeah so the following week lean on me our leo nudged up one place to number three it's high number three fuck me yeah it's high as position after taking the rest of the year and most of next year off to work on their debut lp the circle and the square they re-emerged in late 1986 with for america which spent two weeks at number 10 in November of that year. Fucking hell, a year later, they do nothing, release a song, back in the fucking top ten. Who's buying this? Exactly.

Yeah, it's extraordinary. I mean, number three, pissing from on high on The Cure. It's extraordinary. Yeah, exactly. And For America was another fucking swing-your-pants campfire number one. Oh, to Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, USA. Yeah. They all had that kind of Karma chameleon feel, Fire No. 1 here. Oh, Ture-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re-u-re Their next single, Heart of the Sun, straggled up to number 71 in February of 1987, and when a revamp of Chenko only got to number 77 in August of 87,

they were dropped from the label. Julian Close took a job in A&R for EMI, and Tulson Clark pissed off round the world. The latter was tempted back into reactivating the Redbox brand in 1989 by East West Records, and he put out their second LP, Motive, in 1990. But band and label had a serious falling out, and the LP was pulled from the shelves very soon after its release, and the band split up for 20 years, coming back with the LP Plente in 2010.

What the hell? We have a brand new number one because Bowie and Jagger are down to number three. On the streets of Brazil. It's the biggest climber on the chart this week Up 13 places to number 2 It's Jennifer Rush and the power of love Oh fuck off Fuck me make it stop Sarah's karaoke song

You should kill me for that I want to hear that now That's Jennifer Rush at number two this week on The Power of Love, which means we have a brand-new number one. The last time he was number one was together with Band-Aid, and he now has his first solo number one. Here's Midge Yorke, If I Was. Fucking hell, I wish I'd gone to that Elkie Brooks gig now. A better time A better man Would fell Fucking hell, I wish I'd gone to that Elkie Brooks gig now.

Davis and Jordan, the latter with his hand out of his pocket but now behind his back, tell us that we've got a new number one and we've been spared an extended stare at the state of Mick Jagger and David Bowie in 1985. What is wrong with Paul Jordan's hand? at the state of Mick Jagger and David Bowie in 1985. What is wrong with Paul Jordan's hand?

Has he got a swastika tattoo on it or something? Yeah, I noticed in an earlier link he had his hand in his pocket and he's doing gun fingers, like, whoa, yeah. Do you think this is why he's been airbrushed out of pop history? Do you think it's to do with the hand in some way? A-cab across the knuckles. Unfortunately, the new number one is If I Was by Midure. Born in Cambuslang on the outskirts of Glasgow in 1955, James Ewer was a trainee engineer at the National Engineering Laboratory

in East Kilbride in the late 60s when he joined a Glasgow band called Stumble. In 1972, he joined the covers band Salvation as a guitarist who played the Glasgow and Edinburgh club circuit. But as the bassist was already called Jim, they got him to change his name to Midge, Jim spelt backwards, and the name stuck. In 1974, when Salvation's lead singer left, Err took over as front person and the

band linked up with Shang-a-Lang songwriters Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, changed their name to Slick, signed with Bell Records and went to number one with Forever and Ever in February of 1976. When Diminishing Returns rapidly set in and teeny bopper bands fell right out of favour, they dismissed Martin and Coulter, went a bit punky and changed their name to PVC2, putting out the single Put You In The Picture. But in October of 1977, he was poached by Glenn Matlock for his new band, forcing a relocation to that London where he soaked up every post-plunk influence that came his way. By 1978, Ewan was getting right into synthesizers

and he and drummer Rusty Egan were on one half of a rift against the more traditional Matlock and Steve New, which led to the breakup of Rich Kids. And as mentioned in Chart Music 71, Euronegan approached Steve Strange to fill the studio time he was owed by EMI to create Visage. Thanks to Visage bulking up their line-up to include Billy Currer, who joined after the dissolution of the original line-up of Ultravox,

Euronegan were invited to join the band in 1979, which he did full-time after a stint playing keyboards on a thin Lizzy tour of America, resulting in a run of 14 top ten hits from 1980 to 1984, including a number two with Vienna. On November 2nd, 1984, while Jürgen was in Newcastle sound checking for a live performance for the Tube with the Vox he was called over to the phone by Paula Yates to discover Bob Geldof on the other end who went into one about Michael Burt's BBC news report on the Ethiopian famine

and that something ought to be done about it. Working on lyrics provided by Geldof during a meeting in a restaurant three days later and eventually lifting the tune from a song that had been lying in his drawer for a while, he and Geldof eventually bashed up Do They Know It's Christmas, which ended up being produced by you when their original choice, Trevor Horn,

couldn't get out of other commitments. You know the rest. In early 1985, with Ultravox having a break and their only commitment being their appearance at Live Aid, which York co-organized with Geldof and Harvey Goldsmith, he returned to the solo career he began in 1982 when he took his cover of the 1968 Tom Rush song No Regrets to number nine in July of that year and he spent the first half of this year working on his debut solo LP The Gift which comes out on Monday. This is the lead cut from that LP which came out in the first week of September and entered the top 40 as the highest new entry at number 29 the week after and was immediately bunged on to top of the pops, which helped it soar 21 places to number eight.

A second top of the pops performance moved it up to number four, and this week it scaled the summit of Ben Chartis, deposing Dancing in the Street by jagger and boe and here he is the peter taylor of band-aid in the studio to receive his triumph or is he because to me this seems like a repeat from a fortnight ago because you know top of the pops they're very fond of having the camera sweeping from the presenters to the stage. But this time, it looks like the cameraman's just finished having a quiet piss underneath the scaffolding

on the other side of the studio, just in time for the performance to start. I think it is a new performance. It's hard to say, really, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's funny, with Midge, I always used to have him down as this kind of really evil, scheming, moustached sort of bandwagon jumper and pops in or whatever.

The zealot. Yeah, exactly. But he's actually a terribly nice fella. If you listen to interviews with him, in the way that Jim Kerr is, actually, quite similar to him, very disarming when you hear him being interviewed nowadays. But the fact is, this is just a mystifying waste of everyone's time. I mean, really, what sort of mediocre soul buys a record like this, surges with vicarious pride as they put it on, swells their chest and stands tall? If I... I mean, Al mentioned, you know, he's the Peter Taylor of Live Aid.

And perhaps there's a sense that he hasn't had quite his due, he hasn't had quite the recognition. Didn't quite get to number one, of course, with Vienna. And you just suspect that maybe, just maybe, all these megastars, they had a bit of a whip round backstage, you know, 50,000 here, half a million there, thank you, Elton. And then basically used the money to dispatch Boy Scouts and Girl Guides posing as pop fans to buy this up from Virgin and HMV en masse because they couldn't think of no other reason

why it could have ascended to number one. Yeah. And the weird thing is he looks himself a bit surprised to be up there. You know, it's like, I don't know, something like Steve Koppel being cajoled on stage to deliver a sing-song. And they go, are you sure this is switched on? You know, there's just something...

He looks as bewildered as anybody. Well, this is a question that's always been on my mind. Is it a sympathy number one? Poor old Midge. Good on anybody. Well, this is a question that's always been on my mind. Is it a sympathy, number one? Poor old Midge, good on him. Oh, he deserves it. Oh, go on. When I was a kid, about five years old, my mum and me would walk from town across the forest recreational ground

to get to Ice and Green. And every now and then, there'd be some lads playing football, and my mum would walk out onto the pitch, talk to the referee and say, can my lad have a kick of the ball? And every time they'd stop the game and go, yeah, go on then. And I'd run up and give it a massive hoof

or what I felt was a massive hoof and everyone would go, hey! And then the game would continue and I'd walk home with my man feeling massively proud for scoring a winning goal. And I get the feeling that this is what's being done here by the music business and the media for mid-year. So anyway, this single, I mean, there's loads of soppy ballads

getting to number one in the latter half of the 80s, but at least, or worse, they lodged in your brain. But this one's massively forgettable even for midge yeah because in an article in john blake's white hot club later this month quote midge yore has a confession to make he keeps forgetting the lyric to his own songs i made a real prat of myself on wogan recently i was singing if i was and i just couldn't remember whether it was soldier or sailor or whatever came next it was terribly embarrassing even when midge is on tour with ultravox he can't remember the words to their hits i know vienna was a huge success but i still

find the lyrics a problem no lyrics they mean nothing to him yeah okay pop music is always in two minds about the conditional tense right um for every if i were a carpenter by tim harding there's an if i was your girlfriend by prince for every if i were a boy by beyonce there's or if i was a sculptor her but then again no by elton john fucking hell but grammatical inaccuracy is far from the worst offenses committed by this song i just had to put that in there because my wife's an english teacher and she tells me that it's the second conditional is what we call this tense that mid-year gets wrong in this song but um the lyrics are basically you know kind of river deep mountain high or ain't no mountain high enough it's it's all about prowess it's this elongated boast or or you know i will always love you by dolly slash whitney it's it's

all about how devoted he is to his woman but it has none of the the charm or passion of those songs so it's written mostly by danny mitchell of the messengers who are this scottish band who midge discovered and produced and it's got weird moments in the lyrics there's that bit where it goes if i was a stronger man carrying the weight of popular demand would that alarm her that's an odd little couplet there the bit that gets repeated a few times if i was a soldier captive arms i'd lay before her so what he'd show off like look at all these grenade launchers we stole from the russians now how about a shag you know is that it you know the thing with midges and you mentioned that the

zelig factor that he turns up in different eras of pop but in any of those incarnations whether it's slick or rich kids or visage ultra vox whatever i never feel that people are buying into the idea of midge you himself they aren't buying it whatever it is because it's him he's just this sort of competent pencil tashed singer who's fronting it until now and i think you're right, Al, I think they very much are now buying If I Was because it's him. And you say Peter Taylor, I say the cat from Hong Kong phooey of Band-Aids or Live-In. And it does feel like a sympathy number one because he never did much after this chart-wise. I mean, still, he did better than Bob Geldof and the Vegetarians of Love, I suppose.

Yes, gorgeous. So he canarians of Love, I suppose. Yes, gorgeous. So he can cling to that, I suppose. But the massive success coat, the second success coat we've seen on this episode, that he's wearing seems symbolic. It's making the point that he doesn't need to ride on anyone else's coattails. He has massive coattails of his own. Yes, they are very long indeed. A very sober success coat, though, isn't it?

Not adorned with any brooches or anything. No, it hasn't got sort of diamante shoulder pads or anything like that. No. When I was watching him in this moment of triumph for him, I just kept thinking, imagine if Joe Dolce had a surprise second hit in October 85 and kept it off the top. That would have been fucking amazing, wouldn't it?

I don't get what all the fucking fuss is about anyway. I mean, Forever and Ever by Slick was number one. He's had a go, you know, so what's the problem here? I mean, there is a feeling that Midge has been hard done by. Not least, it turns out, by Midge himself, although he's keeping it on the down low by now. I found an article in the Daily Record from October 2004, which goes, he's one part of the duo

who created the greatest musical fundraiser the world has ever known. But despite kick-starting a massive humanitarian aid project and helping to bring life to the starving children in Ethiopia, Scott's music legend, Mijoror has carried a 20-year grudge over the way he was treated at Live Aid.

The former Ultravox singer has kept a lid on his resentment after he was left feeling like a second ranker, pushed to the back as Band-Aid co-founder Bob Geldof gloried in the limelight. But now the Glasgow-born singer has confessed he felt snubbed as Band-Aid co-founder Bob Geldof gloried in the limelight. But now the Glasgow-born singer has confessed he felt snubbed when asked to move down the Live Aid bill at what is now known as the greatest show on earth. Midge said,

I didn't realise it had happened until the press boys round the bar pointed it out afterwards. One of them came up to me and asked how it felt to be shafted like that. I had no idea what they meant as I'd been told a story about having to swap round the order of appearance because Adamant was having technical problems. At the time, it didn't bother me

in the slightest who went on before who. But as the dust settled, Mitch couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been done over. Midge is convinced the swap was arranged so Bob could play before Prince Charles and Princess Diana left. Midge said Bob wouldn't give a shit if he was performing in front of royals or not. In fact, I'm sure he's blissfully unaware any of this happened because it wasn't his decision. But I realised it was all so that the Boomtown Rats could perform before the Royals had to leave. Bob was being pushed forward and I was being pushed back.

So, of course, my nose was a bit out of joint. But it was pure ego. Nothing could have spoiled the day for me at the time. But the more I thought about it in the months afterwards, the more it ate away at me. In the weeks leading up to Live Aid, I felt increasingly sidelined. I could feel the whole thing change. I spoke to my manager about it during that period, and he agreed that there was something going on. That sounds like an interview rewritten in tabloidese, doesn't it?

As I guess they all were. The performance, I mean, no synth or any form of instrumentation, and no tash either. It had gone by late 1984, which makes him look weird. Yeah. He's kind of replaced it with some pointy sideys, though, so, yeah. Yes, he has. And he has got rid of that ponytail as well,

just at the moment when twats in the media were taking them up with big, thick red glasses. So, you know, he's progressing in a way. Yeah, he's progressing as his hairline is regressing. And I remember in the early 90s, you know, his comeback then, he was very much in the hat-wearing brigade. You know, and fair enough, I've been there, done that very heritage chart

so if I was would only spend one week at number one, giving way to The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush but would spend two weeks at number two before slipping down the charts while the gift got to number Oh, Jesus.

Yeah, that really fucking offended me. The Gift. Yeah, yeah. I think the jam had an album called The Gift three years previously, Midge. Yeah, I thought that. Why don't you call it fucking All Mod Cons? Yeah. For fuck's sake. as previously, Midge. Yeah, I thought that. Why don't you call it fucking all mod cons? Yeah. The follow-up, That Certain Smile, would get to number 28 in November of this year

and diminishing return setting on his solo career, which he tried to maintain with the reformation of Ultravox, who would put out one more LP before splitting up in 1987. Hey, that's great. So good to see you there, number one. Mitch Shaw and If I Was. Next week on Top Of The Pop, Steve Wright and Mike Smith. Yeah, that's more or less it. Thanks for watching tonight.

From Paul and myself, we hope you have an enjoyable evening, the rest of it. And we're leaving with the number 28 record at the moment from Five Star and Love Takeover. Bye-bye. See you. Thank you. Take over. Bye-bye. See you. Jordan, who now has his left hand on display and we can see it hasn't been mutilated or has an offensive tattoo on it, tells us that it's so good to see Mijor at number one.

That was the general opinion. Isn't that nice? He then warns us that it's Steve Wright and Mike Smith next week, leaving Davis to tell us that he hopes we have an enjoyable evening, the rest of it, which makes Jordan smile evilly. It's supposedly more experienced co-host fucking up. Eventually they sign off and leave us with love takeover by five star we came across shaking shalamar in chart music 24 when they took find the time to number seven in august

of 1986 and this their sixth single is the fifth cut from their first LP, Luxury of Life, which came out in July and is currently number 43 in the album chart. It's a follow-up to Let Me Be The One, which got to number 18 in late July and was written by the Dutch production duo Bernard Oates and Rob Van Schalk, who called themselves The Limit and had a number 17 hit in the UK, we'll say, yeah, in January of this year.

It entered the back end of the chart three weeks ago and slid into the top 40 at number 38, but this week it's jumped seven places from number 35 to number 28 after an appearance on Top of the Pops a fortnight ago. And here it is again again being played over the credits as the kids shuffle with a bovine grace and glide in syncopation oh let's get the song out the way first chaps because you know it's perfectly acceptable r&b that would sit nicely on channel four's soul train or yeah or at the end of top of the pops you, obviously got a clear eye on America.

You know, Doris could easily have been in Janet Jackson's position if they hadn't lumped the rest of the family in with her. Yeah. No, I mean, it's perfectly decent, as Five Star always were. You know, just very bright, bubbly, sort of bubblegummy, chaste brick funk for all the family, you know. But I was surprised, really, subsequently, at how precipitously they declined. The slightest hint

of sleeves was enough to wipe them out like a virus and of course they did sort of make that decision to change their image and go a little bit more kind of you know rocket weather but you know for me they were clean cut or they were nothing to be honest i guess that accounts for it really but yeah it's nice i was really surprised to see that this single only peaked at number 25 and also that it was their sixth out of seven singles in a row that didn't make the top 10. I didn't realise there was such a long build-up. Yeah 1986 was there yeah. I sort of perceived them as being sort of instantly massive but yeah the record label showed faith with them and kept them going a long time. They obviously determined that this group is going to be big no matter what that surprised me but when

they did they they did seem like this sort of unstoppable hit machine and and it was you thought they were never going to leave us alone. Janice Long said that on top of the pops they never seem to go away like the wasps of pop. Yeah I didn't them, but we'd already, by this point in the 80s, we'd had musical youth in terms of a family-based British pop group. And then there'd been New Edition, who were a sort of manufactured, non-family American version. And I think I was of an age now where I was very aware of the process. I wasn't just accepting, oh, this is what pop has thrown at us,

either like it or don't. I was very much, oh, I can see the strings. And, you know, it's pretty well publicised anyway that Buster Pierce and their dad was the Svengali behind it all. And I suppose I was still enough of a precious alternative slash indie kid that I didn't like it when people were trying to hoodwink us and trying to pull a fast one.

Once I got over myself a little bit and got a bit older, I just thought, oh, you know, just enjoy it for what it is. So I think I resented Five Star at the time. I think I thought they were part of the forces of evil. But in hindsight, that seems a bit ridiculous. You know, they were a decent enough British take on American R&B. And some of those records are actually pretty good. System Addict I would stand up for. Yeah, that's a good one.

I remember System Addict was the name of a little-known Romo band. And I'm saying that, I'm thinking, who were the well-known Romo bands? Yeah, they were all right, weren't they? And in a way, it's a shame that their fame didn't endure long enough for when Stedman had his public indecency incident, that they could have done what George Michael did with the outside video and really owned it and maybe sort of changed attitudes. But this song, the fact that I'm not even talking about it,

does sort of tell you a little bit. It's just in one ear and out of the other, to be honest with you. It's all right. It's functional. And we can see the function that it's performing is to make people dance. And that's why, actually,

it's perfect for an end of Top of the Pops song rather than a during Top of the Pops song. And speaking of which, Simon, this is a glorious opportunity to have a good, hard stare at the youth. Yeah. And speaking of which, Simon, this is a glorious opportunity to have a good hard stare at the youth of 1985. And, oh dear. All the girls look like Claire Scott

in Grange Hill. All the boys look like they're wearing the new clothes man bought them for the summer holiday. And, you know, we do see the remaining members of City Farm up on a podium like the cool fifth years at the school disco who clearly

can't dance for shit. There's a little group of four who've got something nice going. I mean, yeah, the camera panning across the audience is like a sort of audit. It's a survey of 1985 youth. And yeah, they are the Australians' nightmare we've become grimly accustomed to. But I have to say, look, I do admire their enthusiasm. I mean, you know, which I think they got over enthusiastic in the early 80s but I mean

it's alright it's a bit go for it in places but at least it's not like the bloody 70s audience where they all look like they'd much rather be at home drinking tea and watching Crossroads even as David Bowie's got his arm draped around Mick Ronson doing Starman so there is that I mean by this point City Farm

have been expunged from the credits and and rightly so their time is up the thing with City Farm is when I teach about the disco era and I teach about Don Cornelius and Soul Train and all that stuff the wonderful thing about Soul Train is that the audience and the stars were kind of indistinguishable because everybody looked like a star. Everybody could dance. And that's the whole point of the disco movement. You know, the best case scenario way of describing disco was that it was a way in which everybody on a Friday or Saturday night

could be the star in their local discotheque as long as you had, you know, just one outfit, decent glad rags, and you had a few moves. And then the rave movement is often described as the opposite of that because nobody's a star. And that's seen as being this great positive thing that everyone's just very normal and everybody looks the same as each other and nobody's really showing off.

They're all losing themselves in their music. I feel like in 1985, we're in this kind of mid-period between the two. Oh, yeah. So what's happened is you've got City Farm, who are, you know, nominally professional dancers and are meant to look the business, and you've got the audience, and they don't look particularly starry either.

Everyone's just kind of merged together. I honestly couldn't tell you which were the professional dancers and which were not, and that's not a compliment to anybody involved. But also in 1985, there's a very clear fashion difference between the people on the stage and the people in the audience yeah there's nobody wearing success coats or purple rain outfits on the studio floor who stood out for you in this melange of clock tower at cna wearing youth there was this intriguing little chap with blonde hair oh yeah He looked a little bit in his own world you know. Do you remember that episode we did

Simon from the early 70s with the Lulu on it? Of course. And all those students were dancing and there was one lad who looked like Gareth out of The Office. I think I spotted his cousin here with an extremely lank mullet dancing

like an old man trying to catch a fly next to his leering mate in a shit jumper and an awful blonde rinse that makes him look like a future member of Birdland. Having a wonderful time. Can't dance for shit, but who cares? Get down. In a way, a bit of crapness

as opposed to slickness does seem quite welcome in the context of 1985. Yes, extremely so. Chaps, if you were in the audience for Top of the Pops in 1985 and you know that a camera swept past you while you were dancing to Five Star, would you tell your mates about it before it was broadcast? Yeah, probably. Would you brag on?

Yeah, yeah. Even though you look like a complete knob? I'd mention it offhandedly, yeah. I don't think I'd watch it back. Yeah, I would just say I have been on top of the pops. I don't know, I think I'd hide it. If I was getting down to five star and a camera swept past me and I just thought, oh God, I better look a right bellend here.

Yeah, I'd keep it quiet and hope my peers were nipping to the pantry for some toast toppers or going out to play football or something before that came on. I would say to all my classmates, always remember and never forget, I've been on top of the pops more than you have. I think if my mate Steve Turner had seen me on that, I'd have had grief, you know.

In a fucking twat now. Fucking Morris, eh? The cameramen are doing the usual upskirting trick upon the maidens of the studio floor, but they're being roundly defeated by the fashions of 1985 because it's all culottes and very tight and long dresses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No gossip for you, Dad.

Yeah, yeah. So the following week, Love Takeover nipped up three places to number 25 and stayed there for two weeks, its highest position. The follow-up, RSVP, only got to number 45 in November, but they roared back at the beginning of 1986 when System Addict, their seventh single from Luxury of Life, got to number three in February and they'd have three more top ten hits throughout the year. Paul Jordan, on the other hand, would have a less successful 1986.

He went on to present five more episodes of Top of the Pops, the last one being in February, but was immediately bombarded with other television work, including being offered the first CBBC presenting gig in the broom cupboard but turning it down, forcing them to go with Philip Schofield. This and a stray comment to a secretary at Radio 1 that he didn't listen to music at home and he didn't own a stereo. Yeah, DLT must have been disgusting.

We started to put extremely big noses out of joint at Radio 1 who started to see him as a DJ who wasn't into his music and was using the station as a stepping stone to get into telly, because that's never happened before, has it? Imagine that, yeah. No, like every other cunt, honestly. By mid-January, he was eased out of his Sunday afternoon slot and replaced with Chartbusters,

where Richard Skinner showcased the latest releases about to breach the top 40 and chart tips from the other DJs. In April his option wasn't picked up by Radio 1 although they offered him the Janice Long slot which he turned down. So after his Friday drive time show on May thend, he put down his headphones, left the studio and never returned to the BBC again. As he wasn't on Radio 1 anymore, all the TV offers dried up and he went back to Radio City in 1988. moving on to Rock FM in Preston in 1992 in a managerial role, as well as doing The Breakfast Show, before moving around the digital radio landscape.

And he currently does The Golden Hour on Dune Radio in Southport. Better music and more of it. He got shat on there, didn't he? The absolute fucking nerve of that generation, the previous generation of radio and DJ of radio this is the time when british tv is just you know basically owned by the likes of mike reed but especially noel edmonds no lemons i mean say what you like about paul jordan he didn't fucking kill someone all the other people in paul jordan's generation you know simon mayo nicky campbell they've never done any telly have they yeah Justice for Jordan As far as late 80s top of the pops presenters go, he's not done

too bad, better than Simon Parkin. I mean he does make me nervous with that trying too hard thing, there was a bit in the link to Midge where Gary Davis looks at Paul Jordan with this sort of disbelief as if to say stop shouting Television presentation is fucking hard though

simon because you know in acting they say oh well if you're doing film or television you've got to dial everything down in television presentation you've got to turn everything up a bit you've got to gesture more you've got to be a bit clearer and a bit slower and a bit louder and you know if you have to walk as well fucking hell i guess yeah i've done bits and bobs of telly presentation only local stuff i've seen you yeah walking and talking yeah but it's fucking hard man because you you basically got to train yourself to be inhuman yeah you got to walk around you got to gesticulate like a bastard talking to no one that's there and you've got to walk at the same time yeah i watch telly now and if i see

a good presenter walking around i'd go oh that's textbook that's fantastic walking mate yeah if you're walking towards the camera do you have to sort of practice that by walking away from the camera while doing your bits you know how many steps to do so that you hit the spot is that how they do it well that's how i did it did it, yeah. Is it? Interesting. Yeah. And the worst thing of all is that I was doing this in Nottingham City Centre where you've just got everyone looking around going, oh, look at that cunt, he thinks he's summer on fucking telly.

Yeah. And that, Pop Craze Youngsters, closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One kicks on with the televisual event of the week as EastEnders finally reveals who's got Michelle up the stick. It's Dirty Den, if you weren't aware. Spoiler alert.

Nearly 80 million viewers that got. Fucking hell. Han, Philbin, Stableford and McCann look into the latest developments in construction and introduce a disaster spot feature in Tomorrow's World. Then loose ends pop up on the Lenny Henry Show doing a cover of Golden Years. The only thing I can remember about the Lenny Henry Show was the theme tune. Because if one of my mates started eyeing up or going out with a younger girl,

we'd all sing, Lenny, Lenny, Len, Lenny, Lenny, Len, Lenny Fairclough Show. Oh, for fuck's sake. Oh, man. After the news, it's a repeat of Just Good Friends, the sitcom about the interracial relationship between Jan Francis and Paul Nesta Nicholas Owen.

Then it's the proto-true crime podcast series Rough Justice, the air and spelling drama series Glitter, about an entertainment magazine, a repeat of the documentary series The Past at Work, about the Industrial Revolution, and they close down at 10 to midnight. BBC Two has just finished The Taste of Health, the healthy eating show presented by Judith Han.

If you think healthy food has to be brown and boring, you're in for a surprise, it says here in the Radio Times. Charles Bowman is taken to somewhere he doesn't know and goes on a five-mile walk with the writer Anthony Burton and attempts to work out in what part of the country he's actually in in the geography show Lost Souls. You can't make that nowadays, man, unless you take the phone off. Yeah, yeah.

That's followed by the curious case of Victor Grayson, the former socialist MP for Colne Valley, who was tipped as a future prime minister before he went missing in 1920 and was never seen again. Then it's the Windsor Davis sitcom The New Statesman, about a museum creator who unexpectedly inherits an earldom, followed by the last in the series of Alec Clifton Taylor's English Towns, where the recently dead architectural historian has a good doss around Durham. After part two of Dennis Potter's adaptation of Tender is the Night,

it's Newsnight, the weather, and they round off with a bit of Open University before closing down at 25 past midnight. ITV has just started Give Us A Clue, with Cheryl Baker on one side and Mike Nolan on the other. We'll hope there's no more brawling. Followed by Up The Elephant and Round The Castle, where Jim Cunt Cunt Davidson leans on his mates to help repair his house.

But they're all cunts too. After Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, TVI interviews Margaret Thatcher and asks her why everything is so shit and why she doesn't just fuck off. Then it's the news at ten, regional news in your area, and then an hour and a quarter of more snooker before closing down at quarter past midnight.

Channel 4 is still halfway through Channel 4 news. Then the Bandung file is taken over by Linton Quasey-Johnson, who is dead good as always. Then we're whipped open to the Open Shore Lads Club in Manchester for the last quarterfinal of the Intercity Boys Club Boxing Championship in Henry Cooper's Golden Belt. After the final episode of the Australian drama series The Flying Doctors, it's a repeat of Dream Stuffing,

the sitcom about two women on the dole in an East End tower block. And they finish off with Tube Extra, the great Hollywood swindle, where Jules Holland nips over to Los Angeles and meets Malcolm McLaren, Brian Ferrer, Lone Justice and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, closing down at 25 past 12. Probably the first time we'd ever seen the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yeah. Thanks, Channel 4. So, boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow?

I would say cameo. And maybe the cure, but we don't see enough of the video to get the full effect. So yeah, for me and my mates, it'd be fucking hell, did you see cameo? Yes. Eyes bright. I mean, you know, at this point in the playground,

we've had a wide-ranging conversation. I'd have actually been wondering how many copies of George Orwell's 1984 had been sold so far in 1985. Good point, you know. I'd have actually been wondering how many copies of George Orwell's 1984 had been sold so far in 1985, you know. Good point, well made. You'd get a bit of a drop-off, wouldn't you? So, I mean, you know, digressing. But other than that, yeah, Cameo. Actually, a little bit of The Cure, although it was only an extract, but I think Cameo primarily, yeah. What are we buying on Saturday? I can state with some confidence, because I still have these records in my collection.

So I bought two alternative rock records by white British people, The Cure and The Smiths. And I also bought two dance funk records by black American people, Cameo and Colonel Abrams. And I bought one Anglo-American hybrid, Billy Idol. The rest can fuck off. All of those minus Billy Idol and Colonel Abrams and plus Rene and Angela. And what does this episode tell us about October of 1985? You know, I was going to say something about how it teaches us that it was a time that you had to cling to the good stuff

because there was so much shit out there, but there still was good stuff. But mainly I just thought that paul jordan existed i almost feel like i've been sort of gaslit by somebody doing a deep fake that's you know somebody's invented by ai some kind of tv presenter from the 80s and there he is doing his his pigeon-necked grooving over five star at the end and i just thought i must have watched this episode of top of the pops so um he's trying so hard with his shouting and his finger pointing and his hand in his pocket and and you know all his pigeon neck grooving thing to make an impression and he's making none

all I can say is that I probably walked out of the living room like Trader Union's Eric Heffer out of the conference hall when Red Box came on. That's the only thing I can say, really. I think for me, right, there's a feeling that we're deep, we're very, very deep into the 80s. The 80s started a long time ago, like Thatcher, and it's a long way since they began and they've got a long way to go yet. I think that's kind of the feeling of it, you know. And that brings us to the end of this episode of Chart Music. Usual promotional flange,

chart-music.co.uk, facebook.com slash chartmusicpodcast. Reach out to us on Twitter. And yes, it is still fucking Twitter. I still call them marathons. Fuck off, Elon Musk. At Chart Music T-O-T-P, money down the G-string, patreon.com slash chartmusic.

Thank you, Simon Price. You're welcome. Bye, Curepedia. An A to Z of The Cure. It's really good. God bless you, David Stubbs. Bye-bye, folks. And don't forget, different times, a history of British comedy on favour.

My name's Al Needham, and I'm here to rock and roll. Chart music. Welcome to Britain and a welcome visitor to the Top of the box studio. Here's Billy Idol. How are you doing? I'm doing fine. What are you doing while you're here? I'm here to rock and roll.

I'm here to find out where we're going to play later on this year. Great. Well, rock and roll. I love the hair. KP Honey Roasted. Ooh. Mmm.P. Honey Roasted. Ooh. Mmm. Yeah. Now a honey roasted peanuts from K.P. They're strangely savoury.

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Just listen. This Punk CD has 36 tunes, man, and I'm telling you, they're all great. Yeah. telling you they're all great yeah you also get huey lewis in the news romantics and the fix you can only get this c CD by calling this 800 number, man Yeah So call now

When it comes to me I'm only human A flesh and blood Oh, hold me now Call me, call me, call, come, come, come, comedian Living for the mantis Living in the wild, wild, wild You can get all 36 of these great songs on two CDs for only $26.95

Or two cassette tapes for just $21.95 Here's how to order To order Punk, call the number on your screen Or send $26.95 for two CDs or $21.95 for two cassettes Plus $4.95 shipping and handling to the number on your screen or send 26.95 for two cds or 21.95 for two cassettes plus 4.95 shipping and handling to the address on your screen rush delivery is available remember this special offer is not sold in stores The Clore, the tragedy, the curing, the getting and the total bloodletting got me dead. I'm dead paid. Woo!

Hey, pop-craze youngster. Do you love chart music but hate London? Do you want to see our new live show but would sooner stop at Tom and Doss about in your pants on a Saturday? Are you going to our live show but want to see it again and again and again and again for a week or so? Well, it seems to me like you need to get booked

into our live stream at this year's London Podcast Festival. See that keyboard. Use those fingers. Mash out tinyearl.com slash cmlive23, all lowercase. Step up to the pay window, lay your money down, and get ready to see Team ATV Land throw down live and direct on Saturday, September the 16th.

That link again, tinyearl.com slash cmlive23, all lower case. Come on, Pop Craze youngsters, stick that money down this G-string and watch Team ATV Land grind and thrust just for you. No wanking though, okay? Rock expert David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs. Hi, I'm David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs. Hi, I'm David Stubbs, rock expert David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs. Bringing you a hard-driving mix of hard rock and hard facts. Today, I'm here to talk to you about the Maiden, Iron Maiden,

riding high in 1985, literally putting thunder in our bellies with running free. Formed in Leighton in Crosstown, East London, just 5,000 miles from Los Angeles, California. Iron Maiden were named after Britain's Prime Minister, Margaret Hilda Thatcher, who ruled the Kingdom of Britain with a fist of steel, the way Maiden ruled the Kingdom of Heavy Metal. The biggest beast of all in the jungle of the Iron Maiden discography is Number of the Beast. Catalogue number 66666666666666666666 You see there's several hidden messages there, huh?

Think about it. He's a rolling rock, he's a rocking and rolling rock expert, David Stubbs. Lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson. Not content with being the greatest singer of all time, with the possible exception of Sammy Hagar, he is ranked as one of Britain's finest swordsmen. And don't believe what you read in the papers like a robot sheep. When they say swordsmen, they're not talking about fencing like they make out.

They mean one of Britain's finest at having sex with women. Time and again, he's proven himself in sex competitions, regional, national, international, having sex against other men. And time and again, it's Bruce who comes first. But let's face it, when you're talking about Iron Maiden's main man, you're talking about Eddie.

10 to 15 feet tall, ever-present at at every maiden gigs, spouting blood, dangling Satan like a marionette. There are some conspiracy theorists who would try to tell you that Eddie isn't real, that he's some sort of papier-mâché creation designed to pull the wool over our eyes. Sure, a 9-11 was carried out by Muslim terrorists. Bulgars! What kind of idiots do they take us for?

Sure, tell yourself Eddie isn't real if he helps you sleep at night. But we maidenheads, we know. We know. But of course, calling Iron Maiden heavy metal is to piss directly into the mouth of Steve Harris. It's an insult. It's tying them up in a bogus box created by the media because they were running scared of rock.

If you want to compliment Iron Maiden, don't call them heavy metal. Don't piss in their mouths. Don't even call them rock. Iron Maiden transcend all categories. Call them nothing. Iron Maiden are a nothing group. And that's the best that can be said of them.

Take it away, Al! Rockin' and rollin', rollin' and rockin', rockin' and rollin' and rockin'! If you want to hear more from me, rock expert David Stubbs, subscribe to me on YouTube. Address, HTTPS, full colon, slash, slash, www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

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